Learn how intensive intervention, through the data-based individualization (DBI) process, helps students with severe and persistent learning or behavioral needs.

What is Intensive Intervention
Learn how NCII defines intensive intervention and the steps of the data-based individualization (DBI) process.

Intensive Intervention & MTSS
Learn how intensive intervention fits within a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS).

Intensive Intervention & Special Education
Learn how intensive intervention supports the identification, individualized education program (IEP) development, and provision of specially designed instruction for students with disabilities.

Review and compare the technical adequacy and implementation requirements of academic and behavioral assessments (screening and progress monitoring) and interventions to select tools that meet your needs.

Identifying Assessments
Learn about and access resources related to the different types of assessments (screening, progress monitoring, and diagnostic assessments) that are part of the data-based individualization (DBI) process.

Sample Lessons & Activities
Find sample lessons and instructional videos focused on supporting students with mathematics difficulties in the areas of number systems/counting, basic facts, place value concepts, place value computation, fractions as numbers, and computation of fractions.

Sample Strategies
Find behavioral strategies organized around antecedent modification, self-management, and reinforcement to support teachers working with students with primary academic deficits and challenging behaviors.

Taxonomy of Intervention IntensityLearn how the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity can be used to evaluate and intensify interventions to meet student needs and find resources to support implementation.

Find tools, training materials, videos, webinars, and other resources to support you in your role implementing intensive intervention.

State and Local Leaders
Find tools and resources to support implementation of intensive intervention for school, district, and state administrators and staff responsible for leading MTSS and special education initiatives.

Educators
Find tools and resources to support general and special education teachers, interventionists, school psychologists, school counselors, and other school-based personnel working with students with intensive academic and behavioral needs.

Trainers and Coaches
Find tools and resources to help trainers and coaches support professional learning about intensive intervention.

Higher Education Faculty
Find tools and resources to help college and university faculty support developing, modifying, or enhancing coursework and field experiences related to implementation of intensive intervention.

The Academy of READING, formerly known as the AutoSkill Component Reading Subskills program, is an intensive and comprehensive Tier II and Tier III intervention tool that focuses on strengthening the root skills of reading. Completely web-based since version 5 was released in 2005, the Academy of READING features age-appropriate content, interfaces, and graphical elements that create an optimal learning environment for students as they build foundational reading skills.

Explicit Instruction –Systematic and direct instruction is conducted in the five key pillars recognized by the National Reading Panel:

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Fluency

Vocabulary and Comprehension

Positive Feedback

Assessment Options – Academy of READING includes automated online tests that take a snapshot of each student’s reading abilities relative to grade level.

In-product reporting can be accessed at any time, from any workstation on the network, through the browser-based management system.

Spanish-language support

RtI Tools—The RtI Package can be added to the Academy of READING for a single, web-based solution that connects the key components of RtI

Academy of READING is intended for use in grades 2 through high school. It is designed for use with students with disabilities (including learning disabilities and behavioral disabilities), English language learners and any student at risk of academic failure. The academic area of focus is reading (including phonological awareness, phonics/word study, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary).

The program has been in use since 1985, in 15 different countries, including: Canada, USA, US Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, West Indies, Montego Bay, South Africa, Australia, UK, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, and Republic of Ireland. In the USA only, it is currently in use in over 2950 schools.

We can provide schools and districts customizable pricing, based on their needs.

Schools receive an email with links to activate their licenses and an educator’s kit with wall charts, checklists, and supplementary activities.

In Year 1, technical support and maintenance is included in the software cost. In Year 2 and beyond, schools can optionally purchase a support and maintenance program.

Volume discounts can also be applied for large, multi-school orders.

Annual per student Subscription Model –Licenses must be renewed annually for continued use of the program.

Technical support and maintenance is included in the annual subscription price.

Volume discounts may apply to large, multi-school orders.

Schools receive an installation kit with the software DVD and installation guide to install on the school or district server and an educator’s kit, which contains wall charts, checklists, and supplementary activities.

Professional Development- is provided with the purchase of the Academy of READING program and includes one day of teacher training, one day of live start up with the students as well as two days of in class coaching/best practice and data review. Teacher instructor resource guides are also provided for up to 10 teachers.

It is recommended that the Academy of READING is used 20-30 minutes per session, three to five days a week.

The program includes a highly specified teacher’s manual.

Academy of READING is a browser-based instructional application that can run on a WAN or LAN and requires a T1 or similar network infrastructure. It can also be hosted by School Specialty Intervention.

The instruction training includes one full day (6 hours) of hands-on training to learn functionality of the program and three days of on-site mentoring and coaching with students (teachers not pulled out).

The minimum qualifications of instructors are that they must be paraprofessionals.

The current version of the Instructor’s Resource Guide has been field tested for the past 4 years.

Additional days of professional development are available including advanced reading workshops and on-site days of consultation. Technical support is included in the software price in Year 1 and can optionally be purchased for subsequent years.

Participants:

Sample size: 75 students (38 program, 37 control)

Risk Status: Students were pre-tested with the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT). This test is a norm-referenced group-administered reading survey. It is widely used and well-recognized to identify students at academic risk due to their poor reading skills.

Demographics:

Program

Control

p of chi square

Number

Percentage

Number

Percentage

Grade level

Kindergarten

0.99

Grade 1

Grade 2

2

50%

2

50%

Grade 3

1

33%

2

67%

Grade 4

3

43%

4

57%

Grade 5

4

57%

3

43%

Grade 6

5

50%

5

50%

Grade 7

4

44%

5

56%

Grade 8

6

60%

4

40%

Grade 9

8

53%

7

47%

Grade 10

2

50%

2

50%

Grade 11

3

38%

5

63%

Grade 12

Race-ethnicity

African-American

11

44%

14

56%

0.55

American Indian

Asian/Pacific Islander

Hispanic

6

67%

3

33%

White

16

46%

19

54%

Other

5

63%

3

38%

Socioeconomic status

Subsidized lunch

31

53%

28

47%

0.31

No subsidized lunch

7

39%

11

61%

Disability statusa

Speech-language impairments

Learning disabilities

Behavior disorders

Intellectual disabilities

Other

38

49%

39

51%

Not identified with a disability

ELL status

English language learner

5

83%

1

17%

0.08

Not English language learner

33

47%

38

54%

Gender

Female

12

46%

14

54%

0.69

Male

26

51%

25

49%

a All students included in the current study were identified as having a learning disability. However, data on the specific disability was not collected.

Training of Instructors: The 34 instructors involved in the program had been teaching for a range of 2 to 40 years. They had been teaching at their current school for a range of 1 to 32 years. Twelve of the teachers held a Bachelor’s degree, 21 held a Master’s degree, and 1 held a Doctorate degree. Following initial training all instructors had access to technical support throughout the study.

Design:

Did the study use random assignment?: Yes.

If not, was it a tenable quasi-experiment?: Not applicable.

If the study used random assignment, at pretreatment, were the program and control groups not statistically significantly different and had a mean standardized difference that fell within 0.25 SD on measures used as covariates or on pretest measures also used as outcomes?: No.

If not, at pretreatment, were the program and control groups not statistically significantly different and had a mean standardized difference that fell within 0.25 SD on measures central to the study (i.e., pretest measures also used as outcomes), and outcomes were analyzed to adjust for pretreatment differences?: Not applicable.

Were the program and control groups demographically comparable at pretreatment?: Yes.

Fidelity of Implementation:

Describe when and how fidelity of treatment information was obtained: The Academy of READING® automatically collects and stores information concerning time spent in the program, training, percent of program completed, and skills mastered. Study facilitators also collected qualitative reports from teachers on-site to ensure treatment fidelity.

Provide documentation (i.e., in terms of numbers) of fidelity of treatment implementation:

Teachers received implementation guidelines before the beginning of the study that asked them to use the program for a minimum of 30 minutes, three to five times a week.

In Academy of READING instructional benchmarks are identified by the Placement Test that is built into the program and presented to students at their first login. The Placement test evaluates students’ various reading skills. Based on the Placement test score, lessons needed for each skill to close the gap to allow a student to reach their grade level are identified. In order to complete a lesson, a student needs to have a score of at least 85-96% correct for that lesson, depending on the skill that is being taught. The way that lessons are mapped into sessions is that every time a student logs into the program, they will continue with the lesson that they were last working on or will be presented with the following lesson if the previous lesson was completed with 85% (or higher) accuracy.

Number of lessons for each student is identified by their performance on the Placement test, in other words, the number of lessons for each skill area depends on students’ proficiency. Percentage of program completed is a variable automatically stored in an online database and represents percentage of assigned lessons completed by each student. In one semester (or one school year), a less proficient student, with the same number of lessons completed, the same time in program, and time on task will have much smaller percentage of program completed than a more proficient student, since the amount of work they need to do in order to close the gap and be at their grade level is much larger than the same of a more proficient student. Time in program represents time on task plus time spent on computer delivered instruction plus time spent on tutorials plus time spent on motivational components, while time on task represents the time a student spent working on actual lessons. Therefore, the best measure of fidelity for Academy of Reading is time on task which is on average 50% of time in program. In addition, if there is no activity, a student is automatically logged out of the program after 5 minutes.

School Specialty Literacy and Intervention set a requirement of 3 sessions per week (recommended in the Academy of READING’s best implementation model and required by the study design), which makes 57 total sessions over the course of the intervention (19 weeks). Thirty eight treatment students averaged 43.79 sessions, which identifies levels of fidelity at 77%. Fourteen of the treatment students met this objective. The other twenty-four averaged between 21 and 55 sessions.

The 38 treatment students averaged 2.3 sessions/week (SD=0.93). Fourteen of them completed at least 3 sessions per week. The other twenty four completed between 1 and 2.9 sessions.

Group

N

Total Sessions Required

Avg. Sessions Completed

Avg. Session/Week

Fidelity

Treatment

38

57

43.79

2.30

77%

Control

30

0

0

0

0

EPS/SSLI also set a requirement of 30 minutes time in program per session, which translates into 15 minutes time on task per session over the course of the intervention (19 weeks, 57 sessions). Treatment students averaged 12.21 minutes on time on task per session, which identified levels of fidelity at 85% (see the following table).

Group

N

Total Time on Task (hr)

Time on Task / Week (min)

Treatment

26

11.59

12.21

Control

25

0

0

A student cannot move from one level or one skill to another until all the required exercises are successfully completed and the necessary skills are acquired. The program automatically stores this information for each student in a database which is referred to as number of skills mastered.

For this particular study the number of average skills acquired for the experimental group was provided in the initial study report (copy of the table below).

Academy of READING Fidelity Measures by Group

Group

N

Skills Mastered

Treatment

38

21.5

Control

30

0.0

Measures Targeted:

Measures Broader:

Targeted Measure

Score type & range of measure

Reliability statistics

Relevance to program instructional content

Academy of Reading (AoR) Placement Test

Grade Level Equivalent (GLE), 0-12

Test-Retest Coefficient = 0.77

Close paragraph test of Academy of READING® material.

Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) Total

GLE, 0-12

Test-Retest Coefficient = 0.89

Provides an overall index of students reading ability and indexes skills trained in Academy of READING®.

Note. Maximum scores for STEEP and AoR ORFBA are based on scores from the current sample. The maximum values for these tests are theoretically infinite.

Broader Measure

Score type & range of measure

Reliability statistics

Relevance to program instructional content

Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) Vocabulary

GLE, 0-12

Test-Retest Coefficent = 0.77

Students are not directly trained on building Vocabulary skills in the Academy of READING®. Therefore, this measure indicates the amount of transfer between specific training in the Academy of READING® and other reading related skills.

Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) Comprehension

GLE, 0-12

Test-Retest Coefficient = 0.83

One of the goals of the Academy of READING® is to develop students’ comprehension abilities. However, they are not directly trained on this skill.

Ohio Achievement Assessments (OAA) Reading Scaled

Scaled Score, 0-432

Test-Retest Coefficient = 0.21

The Ohio Achievement Assessment is a state-wide assessment of reading ability administered to students in grades 3 through 8. The test includes a variety of question formats and types that are not directly trained in the Academy of READING®.

Ohio Achievement Assessments (OAA) Reading Raw

Raw Score, 0-420

Test-Retest Coefficient = 0.33

The Ohio Achievement Assessment is a state-wide assessment of reading ability administered to students in grades 3 through 8. The test includes a variety of question formats and types that are not directly trained in the Academy of READING®.

Note. Maximum scores for STEEP and AoR ORFBA are based on scores from the current sample. The maximum values for these tests are theoretically infinite.

Duration of Intervention: 30 minutes, 3-5 times a week, 13 weeks

Reviewed by WWC or E-ESSA: WWC & E-ESSA

What Works Clearinghouse Review

Adolescent Literacy Protocol

Effectiveness: No studies of Academy of READING® that fall within the scope of the Adolescent Literacy review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) group design standards. Because no studies meet WWC group design standards at this time, the WWC is unable to draw any conclusions based on research about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Academy of READING® on adolescent readers. Additional research is needed to determine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this intervention..

Effectiveness: As of July 2007 no studies of Academy of READING® were found that fell within the scope of the Beginning Reading review protocol and met WWC design standards. Therefore, the WWC is unable to draw any research based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Academy of READING® to improve outcomes in this area.